Heretofore, there has been proposed a tactile force sense presenting device which requires a large-scale system and which uses tactile force sense for such as touching a virtual object on a computer (tactile force sense presenting device). This type of tactile force sense presenting device has been applied to electronic devices such as a mobile phone, a PDA, a laptop PC, a remote controller, a mouse, and a game controller, for which portability is highly important.
As this type of tactile force sense presenting device, there have been shown techniques disclosed in Patent Documents 1 through 3. In a tactile force sense presenting device disclosed in Patent Document 1, there is provided a spherical body which includes a moving part thereinside and which is vibratably and rotatably held. This tactile force sense presenting device outputs a tactile force sense signal when a pointer comes in contact with an image displayed on a monitor. In a state where the spherical body is being rotated, the moving part is moved and the spherical body is thereby vibrated according to the tactile force sense signal transmitted from a driving device and an information processing device, thereby presenting a tactile force sense.
In a touch panel of a tactile force sense presenting device disclosed in Patent Document 2, there is provided a transparent and flexible intermediate electrode sheet, and a transparent electrode is formed on both sides thereof. It is configured such that while respectively having a predetermined uniform space between this intermediate electrode sheet and both of the transparent electrodes, an upper side electrode sheet is laminated on an input operation side, and a lower side electrode sheet is laminated on &display device side. The upper side electrode sheet faces the transparent electrode, and it has an upper side transparent electrode. The lower side electrode sheet faces the transparent electrode, and it has a lower side transparent electrode.
A tactile interface device disclosed in Patent Document 3 has a user interface unit having an operation unit to be operated by an operator, a driving unit which drives this user interface unit, and a control unit which controls this driving unit. The driving unit has, in a casing, magnets which are arranged with polarities thereof alternating. The control unit of this tactile interface device causes an electric current to flow through a signal line into a coil within a frame to thereby displace this frame, and it displaces the operation unit attached to this frame, in synchronization with the displacement of this frame. In order to give a reactive force to the operator, the driving unit gives the operation unit a driving force using electromagnetism under the driving control of the control unit.